Traditional base transceiver stations (BTS) are large, immobile installations configured to provide mobile telecommunication service to users in a relatively large surrounding geographic area or “cell”. A traditional BTS typically includes multiple transceivers (TRX), each operating at an assigned frequency and in the case of a GSM installation. In the case of GSM, time division multiple access (TDMA) is used to enable a single TRX to be used to transmit/receive on eight timeslots, each timeslot capable of carrying traffic for a corresponding signaling or traffic channel.
A traditional BTS typically provides connectivity to a public land mobile network (PLMN) via a dedicated wired connection, e.g., a T-1 or E-1 line, to a base station controller (BSC). The BSC typically provides such connectivity for a plurality of base transceiver stations. Typically, a BSC is limited to supporting up to a certain maximum number of base transceiver stations (BTS) and a corresponding and typically larger maximum number of transceivers (TRX). For example, a BSC may be able to support up to a maximum of 300 BTS's and up to 900 TRX's. To fully utilize the capacity of such a BSC, each BTS would have to include on average three TRX's.
Small scale base transceiver stations (sometimes referred to herein by the acronym “S-BTS”), such as a micro-, pico-, or femto-base transceiver stations (micro-, pico-, or femto-BTS), have been developed to provide relatively low volume mobile telecommunications service to specific areas and/or users (e.g., a residence, a business, and/or a remote area). A small scale BTS may not need anywhere near the call capacity of a traditional BTS. For a small scale BTS deployed to serve a single residence, for example, utilization may be such that only a single TRX, or even fewer timeslots than a single TRX would provide may be needed. As a result, deploying numerous small scale BTS's in a service area served by a typical single BSC, each with only one (or fewer) TRX, might result in underutilization of the BSC's resources. For example, in the example described above the BSC is configured to support a maximum of 300 BTS's and 900 TRX's. If each of the 300 BTS's were an S-BTS having only one TRX, then the BSC would support only 300 TRX's, leaving the BSC's ability to support 600 more TRX's unused.